


The Mayor's Cousins

by Bluewolf458



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Gen, Sentinel Thursday
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-09
Updated: 2017-02-09
Packaged: 2018-09-23 04:11:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9640187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bluewolf458/pseuds/Bluewolf458
Summary: Two girls have failed to return home from school





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Sentinel Thursday prompt 'urban legend'

The Mayor's Cousins

by Bluewolf

When twins Joan and Sylvia Elrick didn't arrive home from school at their usual time, their mother was a little annoyed. After all, they were seventeen, and would be leaving school in just a few weeks. She firmly reminded herself that they were sensible girls, unlikely to have done anything stupid, and anything could have held them up.

By the time John Elrick arrived home from work, though, Lauren had passed from annoyance through concern to active worry.

The girls were fully two hours late.

John phoned the police.

The case went to Missing Persons.

Stan Morden and Wilma Yester went to speak to the Elricks, half expecting a call from them to say that the girls had arrived home, late, very apologetic, but having just goofed off somewhere instead of going straight home from school. However, no such call came.

The door was opened by an anxious-looking father.

"Sorry it's taken us a while to get here," Wilma apologised as she held up her badge. "We were doing some routine checks - for example with Dispatch and the Ambulance service to see if there had been any accidents, but both came up clear."

"Come in." His voice was shaking.

He took them into a living room that had obviously been designed for comfort; his wife was sitting in an arm chair, clearly fighting tears.

Wilma repeated the apology, adding, "Sometimes when there's been an accident the victims are unconscious, nobody can identify them - we always check for that first." Her voice was very gentle.

Lauren nodded.

"I have just one or two routine questions. First, have you seen any signs of restlessness or unhappiness in the girls recently?"

"No, nothing."

"Did you check their bedrooms to see if anything was obviously missing?"

"No, I didn't think I needed to. When they left for school this morning, they just had their school bags - they weren't carrying anything else. I watched them till they were out of sight - I know, they're seventeen not seven, and I do try to remember that they're nearly adult, try to hide that in some ways I'm a possessive, over-protective mother... but they're still my babies... " Her voice broke on a sob.

*Some women...* Wilma thought. Herself the mother of one daughter, she knew she would be more than happy when Mina reached school-leaving age and - with luck - decided to leave the nest.

"So they wouldn't have packed bags, slipped out with them first thing and hidden them to be picked up once they left the house?"

"No - but why would they? Why would they want to?"

"Normally you expect runaways to be kids who are unhappy, maybe abused. But sometimes teenagers rebel over being loved and cared for," Wilma said. "I know, it sounds stupid - but they think of themselves as being adult and want to make their own decisions; and so they run away from home."

Urged by Wilma, Lauren did a quick check of the room the two girls shared, and shook her head. "There's nothing missing as far as I can see," she said. "There are one or two items of clothing that they both like and wear a lot, and I couldn't see them running away and leaving those things behind, but the clothes are all here."

And with nothing else to go on, Stan and Wilma left the Elricks and went back to the station. All they could do that evening was report the missing girls as potential abductees.

***

As it happened, John Elrick's cousin was the Mayor, and - surprise, surprise - as soon as heard that Joan and Sylvia were missing, he insisted that the case be transferred to Cascade's top detective.

Jim - already dealing with a high-profile case involving a serial killer - was far from happy about having this case passed on to him - despite the report from Missing Persons, his personal opinion was that the girls had indeed run to get away from a mother who 'babied' them. Abuse, after all, could take many forms, and over-protective parents were, in their own way, as abusive as the ones who ill-treated their children.

And although it meant taking time from what he considered the far more important crime of serial killing, he was going to have to visit the Elricks and the girls' school...

This was where Blair's help would be invaluable - his guide had a gift for interacting with people. Unfortunately Blair was in Seattle at a seminar, and wouldn't be back for another three days.

He had a quick word with the parents - which in a way reinforced his opinion that they were indeed over-protectively abusive - certainly the mother was. William had not been the best of fathers, but at least he had expected his sons to be men from a very early age. Jim was sure that he would have resented being watched over the way Joan and Sylvia were.

From there he moved to the school, but speaking to the girls' friends accomplished nothing. According to their friends, the girls had been heading for home at the end of the school day. According to their friends, neither girl was openly resentful of the way their parents, especially their mother, treated them.

He went back to the PD and wrote out his report. He read through what he had written, and found himself agreeing with the Missing Persons detectives; the girls had possibly been abducted - though two girls together seemed less likely than two individual ones - at some point when they were on their way home.

But who could have abducted them?

After thinking about it for a minute, he crossed to Joel's desk. Joel glanced up and smiled. "Problem?"

"Two missing girls - sisters," Jim said. "Didn't get home from school yesterday. I want to follow the route they'd have taken, see if anything jumps out at me. Would you come with me? Blair won't be home for another two days and I don't want to wait that long before I check it."

Joel looked at him, nodding, as he went on. "When Blair's away I react better to you than anyone else, except perhaps Simon. I can't afford to wait till Blair gets back - if there's anything to find I need to go now. Yesterday would have been better, but I wasn't given the case till this morning." He crossed to Simon's office, knocked, and stuck his head around the door. "Simon, I'm taking Joel and going to check the route the Mayor's cousin's kids would have taken going home. I doubt I'll find anything, but at least I'll have tried."

"Okay," Simon said, and Jim headed off, Joel at his heels.

They left Jim's truck at the school and began to walk slowly down the road that one of their friends had indicated was the one the girls took going home.

And Jim found nothing.

They went back to the school, Jim still alert for anything that seemed out of place. They were about halfway when Jim's cell phone rang.

"Ellison."

"Sneaks. Meet me at the usual place in half an hour?"

"Right." He clicked the phone off and glanced at Joel. "One of my snitches," he said, and speeded up.

***

Sneaks had some information on a man called Red Moran - the man Jim suspected was the serial killer he had been investigating.

"Word is that he's been making those movies that kill people," Sneaks said. "And then dumping the bodies where they'll be found so he doesn't have the hassle of getting rid of them."

However, Sneaks had no information on where those films were being made.  But it at least gave Jim a motive of sorts for the murders.

"Is there any chance that Moran has managed to grab those girls?" Joel asked as he and Jim returned to the PD.

"I wouldn't have expected him to go for two people together," Jim said slowly, "even two teenage girls. Not unless he's not working alone."

"Well, if he's making snuff films... " Joel's voice tailed off.

"Yeah, any kind of film," Jim agreed. He fell silent, thinking over the forensic evidence on the bodies, then shook his head. "Sneaks is pretty good," he said, "but I think he's wrong with this. If you were making snuff films, how would you go about doing the killing?"

Joel frowned. "I'd... I'd kill them in different ways... "

"Yes. But our serial killer - who could be Moran - likes to use a knife. All the bodies found so far have had severe knife injuries and the indications were that they bled to death. Someone making snuff films is going to use different methods of killing his victims. But there's this, as well - how long does it take to make a film?" Jim turned the truck into the PD Parking garage.

"An ordinary film... weeks. Months, even - "

"And these bodies have been turning up at about one a week," Jim pointed out as he pulled into a parting space.

They headed for the elevator. "Well, a snuff film isn't going to need take after take," Joel said slowly. "By its very nature it wouldn't be that long, and wouldn't take long to film. Even if the victim took an hour to die... A few minutes of attack, then film his death throes... "

***

Blair hummed cheerfully along with the song on the car radio as he speeded northwards. He was approaching the suburbs of Cascade; Another half hour and he'd be home...

...maybe.

A girl was climbing out of an upstairs window of a house he was approaching, helped by another one... They were clinging to each other's hands as the one inside seemed to be letting the other one get as far below the open window, to minimize the drop, as she could.

Blair stopped just before he reached the gate, watching as the girl let go and dropped to the ground, sinking to a crouch then straightening. By the time she was upright, Blair was already at her side.

"You all right, Miss?"

She gasped in obvious fear and raised her hands defensively. Blair pulled out his badge. "Cascade PD. What are you doing?"

She looked at the badge and seemed to relax. "My sister and I... we were kidnapped a couple of days ago. A few minutes ago we saw the men who'd grabbed us driving away, and thought... We couldn't both get out, it was too far to jump, but Joan managed to lower me a bit... "

Blair was already reaching for his cell phone. He called it in, asked for backup to include at least one policewoman, and took the shaken girl back to his car to wait.

Things moved fairly quickly after that. A downstairs window was open; it was a matter of seconds for one of the Patrol officers to get into the house and unlock the door, then go up the stairs, release the deadbolt locking one of the upstairs rooms and release the shivering girl inside while his fellows made a quick check of the house..

The Patrol cars were parked out of the direct line of sight of anyone returning to the house while the cops waited to arrest the men on their return from wherever they had gone, and Blair and the attending policewoman took the girls to the PD, where it was soon established that the disappearance of Joan and Sylvia Elrick was being investigated by Detective Ellison.

***

"You're home early," Jim commented as he and his partner headed for Major Crime after the girls had been 'claimed' by their parents.

"Yeah - the guy giving the talks took ill. We were given photocopies of tomorrow's presentation and told we could leave... so we did. So what was the tale with the girls? I thought you were working that serial killer case."

Jim told him, ending with, "The best Sneaks could come up with was that Moran was making snuff films."

Blair shook his head. "There's no such thing."

"Huh?"

"An earlier part of the seminar dealt with things like that. Apparently no 'legitimate' snuff film has even been identified. It's totally an urban legend."

**Author's Note:**

> Some info on this is listed at this site -  
> http://list25.com/25-most-popular-urban-legends-still-being-told/3/  
> (Last one on the page)


End file.
